Tag: fourth amendment

If you have a cellphone, police can use it to track your location any time they want without a warrant. That’s the opinion of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, supporting earlier rulings by two other appeals courts. According to the ruling, cell phone users can expect no Fourth Amendment protection regarding their records because the cell phone company already keeps that information for its own use. This data “clearly is a business record,” the court said, and police do not even require probable Read more […]

The giant $1.2 billion NSA snooping storage facility in Utah tops out at over 15 times the size of Giants/Jets stadium, and that’s just the part that’s above ground. 200 acres is evidently not enough room to store all the data to “keep America safe.” In May of this year construction began on an additional 28 acre NSA site outside of Baltimore Maryland (and again, that’s just the part that we can see). Together they are seven times the size of the Pentagon. But don’t worry; they need all that Read more […]

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Like the rest of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, our governments, local, state and federal have Read more […]

“The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence. That prohibition is categorical and without exception; it lies at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment.” — Justice Scalia The Supreme Court took a hearty swipe at the 4th Amendment, and thanks in large part to the so-called Conservatives on the court, our Bill of Rights may never look the same. In the Read more […]

Sir John Dalberg-Acton famously observed, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and that includes the IRS. No federal agency enjoys more power than the “absolute power” wielded by the Internal Revenue Service. It’s little wonder, then, that under this power-drunk Obama regime, the IRS has become “corrupted absolutely.” It’s become the hammer to this president’s favorite nail: political dissent. The bureaucratic cat’s out of the bag and the evidence Read more […]

James Eades of Augusta, Georgia was driving down a highway with a friend when they approached what they thought was an accident scene. Not wanting to be detained in traffic for an indefinite period of time, Mr. Eades turned around to go a different way. He didn’t realize that what he did in turning around was wrong, because as it turned out, he wasn’t avoiding a traffic accident; he was evading an Operation Thunder police checkpoint. When police see that someone is turning around like that Read more […]

Have you heard? The Boston bombing suspects had guns, but they didn’t have valid licenses to carry in Cambridge, Massachussetts. I’m sure the gun control lobby is already licking its chops over that little tidbit. There are so many things at stake in this crisis. For one, the bombing suspects, whether guilty or not, both had American citizenship. Yet they are being viewed by the civil government as active enemy combatants. The decision to hold the still living suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, without Read more […]

The NYPD’s “stop and frisk” policy is under fire after a U.S. District Judge ruled them unconstitutional. In 3 separate lawsuits all pertaining to this practice, Judge Shira Scheindlin condemned the city’s “deeply troubling apathy towards New Yorkers’ most fundamental constitutional rights.” She ordered the NYPD to cease performing their trespass stops unless they had reasonable suspicion that led them to believe that someone was aboutto commit a crime, was in the process of committing Read more […]

What was touted as an effort to make sure gun enthusiasts at an Arizona public shooting site pick up their shells after they finished shooting actually turned into a federal checkpoint where people’s cars were searched to substantiate arrests. Drivers were stopped and told before they entered that they could shoot as long as they picked up their empty bullet casings. Upon their departure, about 250 cars were stopped, and the drivers had to provide evidence that they picked up their empty shells. But Read more […]

… is a non-existent one. But this sleeping one is pretty good too. I wonder, do TSA agents dream of electric sheeple? Speaking of sheeple, do you know what the Fourth Amendment says? Most people don’t. The few that know anything say it has to do with “unreasonable search” and “probable cause” and all that. But most everyone gets the probable cause bit wrong. It absolutely does not say that civil government officials can search or seize your property if they have probable cause. No, it Read more […]